


A Gentle Kind of Fire

by HarmonizingSunsets



Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: A little bit of angst but much more fluff, A long one shot, Developing Relationship, Emotional Growth, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Never Have I Ever, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Episode s01e10 ...Said I'm Sorry, Rivals to Lovers, Spans from high school to after, many pop culture references because why not?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24836575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarmonizingSunsets/pseuds/HarmonizingSunsets
Summary: Devi contemplates how hate may be too strong of a word for what she feels about Ben, and John McEnroe begins to function like a laugh track in her mind as their relationship progresses.This starts after the last episode of season one and takes off from there. It spans through their high school years to college.
Relationships: Ben Gross & Devi Vishwakumar, Ben Gross/Devi Vishwakumar
Comments: 24
Kudos: 164





	A Gentle Kind of Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy me pouring out this fic I've been working on ever since I binged the series a while ago. The rivals to lovers trope is my weakness. 
> 
> P.S. Devi's opinion of who's the best Jonas brother is not a reflection of the author's beliefs. ;)

Devi hates Ben Gross.  
  
Alright, maybe hate’s not the right word for how she feels about Ben. She’s mature enough not to hate people. Even if that person is her arch-nemesis—the arch-nemesis who’s starting to be her friend. Then again, you don’t do what she did in the car at the beach with just a friend...  
  
Scratch that. Let’s start over, using a term a little less extreme than hate.  
  
Devi dislikes Ben Gross.  
  
That’s true, right? Disliking someone means that you avoid talking to them because your day is worse when they’re around.  
  
Except, that isn’t true when it comes to Ben. She keeps seeking him out to spend time with him. If she really dislikes him, like she’s always claimed to, she would have never asked to move into his house. She would have never gone to his birthday party. Never have laughed so hard with him in her kitchen. Never have leaned over in that car seat and—  
  
“ _Stop thinking about that_ ,” Devi thinks to herself.   
  
Stop thinking about his smile after she kissed him. Or the feeling of his hands knotted in her hair and the feeling of his lips—.  
  
“ _What are you doing_?” a voice sounding like John McEnroe asks with a laugh. “ _You’re supposed to be thinking of reasons not to like him, remember_?”  
  
Devi pulls the covers on her bed over her, burying her head under the blanket, determined to banish herself into darkness until she gets this right.  
  
Ok, let’s try this one more time.  
  
Devi thinks Ben Gross is annoying.   
  
Ben is annoying because every time Devi brings up a point during class, he has to counter it, which makes her blood boil in an intoxicating way. It’s annoying that Ben and Shira only make out in the hallway when she points a phone at them. It’s especially irritating that Ben lets Shira ignore him whenever she feels like it, and that she didn’t get him anything for his birthday. Ben’s annoying because he doesn’t expect people in his life to care about him, so he just accepts what he can get.  
  
What’s even more annoying is when he smiles, that soft smile that makes the blue in his eyes gleam, Devi forgets the equation she just learned for her math final last night. She forgets the interview questions for Princeton that she’s had memorized since she was eight. She even forgets that Ben is supposed to be her rival for a few seconds when he smiles at her like that.

The most annoying thing about Ben isn't that he name-drops his father’s clients or goes on long rants about whatever dorky show he’s been watching. No, the most annoying thing about him has more to do with her.

It’s annoying that she’s never hated him.  
  
Even though Devi’s been angry at him, like she was when he recited one more digit of pi than her out of spite in the seventh grade, or when he said that Kevin is the best Jonas brother when it’s totally Nick, she’s never hated him.  
  
She’s annoyed that she actually likes him.  
  
Like, really likes him.  
  
While everyone else walked around eggshells after her father’s death, Ben treated her as the same intellectual adversary as always. She knows that he said some pretty offensive things, but she’d also said some pretty bad things about him over the years. Devi likes that she can depend on their bantering. It helped her get her mind off things back then, like how her father’s shoes that never would be filled again sat at their front door for weeks after his funeral.

She relies on Ben for a challenge and now relies on him for a shoulder to lean on when things get hard. She relies on him for a laugh and a dose of honesty when she needs it. Most of all, Devi relies on Ben for a reminder that she could take on anything that she found terrifying. Like apologizing to her friends and mother, and letting go of her father at the beach.  
  
“ _Kid, your plan to stop thinking about this situation with Ben and what to do about it after hearing Paxton’s voicemail isn’t really working out_ ,” McEnroe points out. “ _Why not let your thoughts go where they may_?”

Devi sighs, pushing the blanket back down with a huff and letting the train of her thoughts leave the station.  
  
She thinks about how it’s easier liking Paxton. There aren’t as many complications with him. The only struggle about liking Paxton is that it’s hard to feel comfortable around him. She sometimes feels like she has to make a big effort to relax in his presence, and he doesn’t understand her easily.   
  
But with Ben, it’s the opposite. Liking him is complicated, and it pokes at deeper feelings that she didn’t even know were there. But somehow, Devi felt like she could be herself with him. He catches on quick to what she means, what she wants, and why she does something. He gives her these looks signifying that he understands the things she’s going through even when she can’t quite explain any of it out loud.   
  
The memory of their kiss burns inside her brain, replaying over and over in her mind. It isn’t because she’s using her kiss with Ben to escape her problems like she once did with her kiss with Paxton. Instead, thinking about Ben seemed to be the natural route for her brain to take. A path that maybe she was meant to take all this time.  
  
Without giving it too much thought, Devi pulls out her phone and gets up his contact. She smiles when she sees his contact photo. One day at his house, she’d taken a picture of him studying at the breakfast table in his nerdy but cute pajama set. They bickered about it when he noticed her phone pointed at him, but a grin was plastered on his face until he disappeared into his room to change.

 **Devi:** What’s up?

Two minutes pass before she receives a reply.  
  
**Ben:** Binging a show on Netflix. Can you guess which one?

 **Devi:** A docuseries about prepubescent boys trying to grow mustaches?

 **Ben:** Did you watch it to help grow yours?

 **Devi:** Ah, a classic Ben burn. It’s getting a little old. Got any new material?

 **Ben:** Hey, you’re the one that brought up mustaches. You know it’s a sore point for both of us.

Devi rolls her eyes, but if someone walked into her room, they could see her smile illuminated by the light from her phone pointed at her face. 

**Devi:** So, what are you actually watching?

 **Ben:** _Stranger Things_.

 **Devi:** You’ve never seen it?! Man, it took you long enough, Gross.

 **Ben:** Hey, being the top student at our school takes a lot of time and work, David. I can’t just binge every show at a moment’s notice. 

**Devi:** Good to know you think competing with me is such hard work.

 **Ben:** You’re impossible.

 **Devi:** You love it.

She regrets the message as soon as she sends it. The three dots appear on her phone for what feels like hours before she receives Ben’s reply. 

**Ben:** Maybe I do.

Devi exhales when she sees the message. But when she thinks about the fact he has a girlfriend, she feels herself take in a sharp breath.

 **Devi:** So, is Shira watching it with you?

 **Ben:** No, we broke up last week.

Devi sighs in relief again but immediately feels guilt wash over her. While Shira has never been her favorite person, Ben’s probably hurting right now. Ben’s been there for her. She needs to be there for him too—even if it is just as a friend.

 **Devi:** I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do? 

**Ben:** No. It was a long time coming. She posted a sad Instagram picture in front of a sunset fifteen minutes after and then posted a picture in front of a sunrise with another guy the next morning.

 **Devi:** Ouch.

 **Ben:** Yeeeep.

 **Devi:** Want company?

When she hears the whoosh of the sent text, she feels a rush of panic. 

“ _Devi, what are you doing_?” McEnroe’s asks. “ _What if he says no? If he says yes, how are you going to convince your mom to let you leave the house_?”

Before she can make a rebuttal to McEnroe, her phone pings with another message from Ben. It takes her three times to unlock her phone due to her sweat making it hard for her phone to read her fingerprint. 

**Ben:** Sure. But you can’t spoil anything.

 **Devi:** You tend to spoil things all on your own. You don’t need help from me.

 **Ben:** Just get over here, David. 

Devi quickly gets out of her bed, almost tripping on a shoe on her floor that she hasn’t found the match for in months as she does. She heads over to her mirror, patting down some curls that went frizzy from tossing and turning in her bed. She gets out the One Direction perfume she’s been hoarding since the band broke up, and sprays it in the air once and hastily walks through it.

When she goes downstairs, she sees her mother sipping tea and reading a book in the living room. 

Devi freezes in place, looking at her with a tight smile. 

“Hey mom,” Devi drawls out anxiously. 

“Oh no, the ‘y’ in hey was far too long.” Her mom lowers her book and raises an eyebrow at her suspiciously. “What do you want?”

Devi walks up to her, putting her hands up in the defensive position as she speaks, “I respect curfew, so if you let me go, I will be back by ten and—.”

“Spit it out,” her mom interrupts. “Where do you want to go?

“I thought I’d go over and hang with Ben,” Devi says, hoping to appear innocent as she batted her eyes. 

“Ben Gross?”

“Yes,” Devi nods. She moves closer to the armchair, placing a hand on her mom’s that still feels warm from the mug she’d been holding. “And since we’re doing that full honesty thing now, I don’t think his parents are home. But Patty will be there and—.”

“You can go.”

Her mother’s words came out so casually, so coolly that it took Devi a few seconds to respond. She has to pinch herself to make sure she isn’t dreaming.

“What?” 

“I said you could go, but don’t have him drop you back off here. I appreciate him breaking the law to get you to the beach, but he shouldn’t do it again until he gets a license.”

“That’s it?” Devi gaps at her. “You’re seriously alright with me going over to a boy’s house alone?”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic, Devi.”

“You’re the one who usually is about this stuff!” 

“But this is different. Ben’s a nice, smart boy, an uncommon combination in male teenagers these days.”

Devi smiles. “Yeah, he is.”

Her mother nods, opening up her book as she speaks, “And I don’t think you’re going over there to kill each other, because you no longer hate one another. Correct?”

“Correct.” 

“Great. That means I don’t have to worry about getting a call that my daughter assaulted a rich boy,” she says while turning a page of her book. “I trust you. Just don’t do anything tonight to change that.”

Devi beams at her mother, happy about all the progress over the last few days. She’s coming to respect her mother’s views, and in turn, her mom was making an effort to show that she loves and respects Devi.

“Yes ma’am,” Devi says, grabbing her purse and heading towards the door. 

“Devi?” she hears her mother say from the other room.

“Yeah?” 

“Have fun.”

Devi smiles, murmuring a thank you before leaving the house.

…

She barely knocks on the door before Ben swings it open.

“Hey,” Devi says, awkwardly putting her hands in her pockets.

Ben leans against the door, staring at her as if she has three heads like that dog from Greek myths. 

“Hi.”

She sways on her feet, practically hearing the watch on his wrist tick as they silently stand in front of one another. 

“So, are you gonna let me in?”

“Oh yeah,” Ben replies with a shaky laugh, opening the door wider and letting her through. “The show is queued up in the theatre room.”

They start to walk, and Devi keeps her hands clasped behind her as they do. 

“What episode are you on?” 

“Season two, where Jonathan and Nancy are staying at that weird conspiracy guy’s house.”

“I love that episode! That’s where they finally—.”

Ben’s hands shoot up to cover his ears, and he starts humming to block out her voice. 

“Don’t be a baby,” Devi says, giving him a gentle shove with her hand. “I’m not spoiling anything. It’s obvious what’s about to happen between them.”

Ben stops in front of the theatre room door, turning to her slowly with those big pools he calls eyes. “Is it?” 

“Yeah,” she says slowly, her throat suddenly feeling thick. “It might’ve taken them longer to realize it, but to the audience, it was a long time coming.”

“What about Steve?” 

She took in his meaning, knowing he was thinking about Paxton just as she was thinking about Shira earlier that night.

“He ends up being a great character once you get to know him, but Steve isn’t right for Nancy. He may have that cute 80s heartthrob hair, but she and Jonathan understand each other, are there for one another when they need it,” Devi says, slowly annunciating her words to make sure her meaning gets through to him. “That’s what’s important, right?”

Ben’s eyes turn from dim to bright, a tentative smile taking over his lips.

“Right,” he agrees and then leads her into the theatre room that suddenly feels hotter than she remembers it being. 

They watch the show and make a few snarky remarks about how dramatic Mike is acting and about the bad fashion styles of the era. Even though there’s no one else in the room, they, for some reason, feel the need to whisper, leaning close to the other when they speak.

They’re on the last episode of the season by the time Ben’s hand makes it to hers on the armrest. At first, it hovers there for a few minutes. Then it grazes the side of her hand before his fingers finally curl around hers. 

She’s too afraid to look away from the movie screen, feeling the blood in her hands pulsing as he holds it. She eventually clears her throat and manages to spare a glance away from the screen and at him.

“So, are you done with the English paper?”

He gives her a confused look. “Uh, yeah. Finished it this morning.”

“Don’t tell me you wrote yours about how the madwoman in the attic is a symbol for female oppression. That’s so obvious, and it’s an overdone thesis on Jane Eyre.”

“No, I wasn’t going to do it on that.”

“Really?” she asks, feeling her breath begin to quicken. “Because unlike you, I write my papers based on in-depth analysis, not just on bullet point themes I find on Sparknotes.”

“David,” he says, his fingers moving against hers lightly. 

“Mine’s on how the building of the house at the end represents a re-establishment of the patriarchy, instead of breaking it down when Rochester’s house burns.”

“Devi.”

“Seriously, why is the book considered romantic? Rochester is hecka creepy,” she says, unable to stop words from tumbling out due to how soft his voice is when he says her name. “Dressing up as a gypsy to pry her feelings out of her? Calling her little girl, to reinforce their power difference? He seems more like one of Poe’s disturbing protagonists than a period heartthrob if you ask—.”

Ben cuts her off, his other hand going to her cheek and pulling her in for a kiss. Devi’s surprised for a second but quickly begins to kiss him back. Any argument she made for the past few days about her kiss with Ben being one of those fantastic but fleeting moments that wouldn’t be as good if it happened again flew out the window. It is just as good as it was before, if not better. They kiss like they debate with one another, with so much passion and determination.

After a minute passes, she feels Ben’s lips turn up in a smile. 

Devi pulls away, looking at him quizzically. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s just, last time I tried that in here, you pulled away from me,” he grimaces at the memory. “Twice.”

She winces too. “Glad you could recover some of your pride.”

“That’s not why I did it.”

“I know,” Devi says with a wave of her hands. “I didn’t kiss you back for that reason, either. I mean, I haven’t exactly been known for doing things to boost your ego.”

He inched closer to her. “I’m glad. I like it when you challenge me.”

“I always thought your secret kink was snarky banter.”

“It’s yours too, don’t deny it.”

‘Fine, I may find it…a little fun to debate with you,” Devi says as she tosses her head back and forth. “Well, most of the time.”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “What percentage are we talking about?”

“A passing percentage—maybe around 60 percent.”

“60 percent?” 

“50 percent if you brag about your father or your car.”

“What do you have against my car?” he exclaims. “It got you to Malibu!”

“80 percent if you use a word from the A.P. list, that shows effort. 96 percent if you’re wearing one of your dorky printed shirts because they make your retorts cuter.”

His eyes glint with intrigue. “Those shirts do it for you?” 

“But 30 percent if you are wearing those khaki pants with a tucked-in shirt. It makes you look like a dweeb in a sitcom from the—.”

For the second time that night, Ben cuts her off, his lips crashing onto hers. There’s a more urgency this time. She has to work to keep up, pulling him closer by tugging on the collar of his shirt. As she starts to part her lips, he breaks away from her, looking smug. 

“I like kissing you as a new way to shut you up.”

Devi rolls her eyes, but her thumb is rubbing circles on his cheek. “I like kissing you as a new way to make you more bearable.” 

“Can we go back to the khaki pants for a second?” he asks, his eyebrows furrowing. “What is it about them that makes me get a failing percentage? I like—.” 

It’s Devi’s turn to kiss him, stealing the words from his lips. She lets herself get lost in the feeling of his lower lip, grazing hers before pulling away. 

“Kissing to shut you up works too, good to know,” Devi smirks.

The smirk doesn’t last long, as Ben mumbles something under his breath before they start to kiss again.

When they realize that Ben has missed most of the last episode, he starts it over so he can watch the rest of it another time. They go into the living room a while later, where talking turns into kissing and then back into talking again for an hour. 

Ben leans forward, pecking her quickly on the lips as they sit on the couch. 

“Your lips are ridiculously soft,” Devi comments, brushing her fingers across them. “Do you use some rich person chapstick?

“Nope, just the brand that’s literally named Chapstick.” He begins to weave his fingers through her hair, looking mesmerized as he touches different curls and let them fall out of his hands like sand. “Your hair is so soft. Do you use fancy shampoo?”

“Nope, just Pantene. But, sometimes, I sneak a dab of Kamala’s conditioner that she gets sent over from India.”

He leans closer, his face ghosting next to her neck. “It smells nice too.”

“You’re smelling my hair?” She swats his chest, playfully. “You’re such a weirdo, Gross.” 

“You were pulling at my hair when we were making out,” he said, pointing up at his disheveled hair. “That’s weirder.”

She rolls her eyes. “I was not pulling it. I was caressing it.” 

“That sounds even weirder,” he laughs. He lets his forehead rest onto hers, his face turning more serious. “But you don’t have to stop doing it, it was nice.”

“And you don’t have to stop using that drugstore chapstick. It works for you.”

“What else works?”

“Remember what I said about not wanting to boost your ego?” Devi dryly reminds him. 

“Come on, if we’re going to be doing this, we should get used to saying nice things to each other. We’ve been getting better at it these past few months.” Ben’s expression then turns timid, uncertainty in his eyes. “You like that, right?”

Devi takes a deep breath and nods. “I do.”

When Ben’s lips twitch up at her answer, Devi feels herself relax. She reaches for his hand on the back of the couch. She laughs as they begin to swirl their hands together in the air playfully. 

“Your eyes,” she says abruptly.

His hands pause their movement. “What?” 

“Your eyes are another thing I like about you,” she explains as they start a gentle tug of war with their hands again. “They’re really blue. You can make your eyes so big and doe-like like Zoey Deschanel. She would be afraid if you both ever went into the same audition room.”

“Do you think I could be cast as Jess in a remake of _New Girl_?”

“I’d say you’d put up quite the competition.”

She never thought she’d see the day when Ben Gross blushes because of her. Yet, here he is, his cheeks a rosy pink, making him look identical to the blushing emoji.

“I like your smile,” Ben says suddenly, and she feels her grin grow. “It takes over your whole face. It makes it hard not to smile back.”

Devi looks down at their hands and uses her pointer finger to tap each of his knuckles rhythmically. 

“You’re nice to people—especially waiters. My mom always says that shows good character.”

“You’re smart,” Ben adds next. 

Devi scoffs, starting to pull her hand away. “Well, duh.”

“Wait, I didn’t finish.” His hand surges forward and catches hers. “You’re smart in the way that’s inspiring and makes me want to rise to your level.”

Devi arches a brow with amusement. “Are you saying I’m a level higher than you intellectually?” 

He rolls his eyes. “I’m saying the margin between our intellects is small.”

She laughs, finding it funny how his stubbornness is so kindred to hers. 

“You’re also too good for me,” Ben mentions next. 

Devi frowns, her eyes drifting down to the carpet as his words don’t sit right in her mind. 

“I’m sorry,” Ben says worriedly, placing an apologetic hand on her shoulder. “That was supposed to be a compliment.”

“I know,” Devi sighs, taking a few seconds to meet his eyes again. “It’s just…Is that what you really think? That you don’t deserve someone good?”

“Yes—I mean, no. I don’t know,” Ben stutters, his hand falling off her shoulder.

He slumps back onto the couch, looking like a flower whose stem has just been bent, wilting away into the ground. 

“I just think that when it comes to choosing someone, that I’m not...you know, anyone’s first pick,” he says with a ridged shrug, looking anywhere but at her. “It’s cool.”

“No, it’s not.”

He looks unfazed by her words, which gives her a pulse of determination, a need to get closer to him. She hooks her arm around his waist, forcing him to face her. 

“You shouldn’t settle for being someone’s second choice. I thought for too long that I needed to make people like me, so I would feel like I was good enough, but I’m already enough. You are too. Don’t let anyone, ever, make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.”

“ _Was that last part from 10 Things I Hate About You_?” John McEnroe asks with a snicker.

“ _Shut up_ ,” Devi tells McEnroe.

Ben’s eyes are gleaming at her, his lips twisting into a knowing smile. “That last line sounds familiar.”

She hears John McEnroe’s I-told-you-so laugh booming in her head.

“Ok, that last part was from Heath Ledger. But the rest came from me, and it’s all true!”

Ben’s gaze turns soft. He brings his hand up to her cheek and brushes it against her skin like a paintbrush swishing paint lightly against a canvas. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” 

Ben gravitates towards her, and Devi feels pulled into his orbit. 

“Devi, I really like you,” Ben whispers, kissing her gently on the cheek. 

Devi feels like she does when she opens up a new book, seeing words that have been written on the page for a long time but are entirely new to her.

“I really like you too,” Devi says, resting her head on top of his chest.

Not too long after this, Devi realizes that she has to leave to make it home on time for curfew. Ben walks her to the door, the back of their hands brushing as they sway at their side. 

“So, what happens after you leave?”

“I get in a Lift. It drives me home at a speed that everyone but you drive at.”

“No,” Ben says with a slight laugh. “I mean between us.”

“I don’t know,” Devi answers honestly, chewing on her lower lip. “What do you want to happen?”

Ben anxiously ruffles his hair in thought. “Well, as we established, I have feelings for you. I would like to explore them, but only if you do too.”

“I would.” Ben smiles widely, and begins to move forward, but Devi puts a finger up in protest. “But, I don’t think I’m in the place to be in a relationship right now. Can we just take this slow?”

“Slow, yeah, of course,” he nods, opening the front door for her where a car was already waiting. “I’m good at slow. You know how I drive.”

Devi barks out a laugh and nudges her shoulder against his. “Bye Ben.”

“Bye.”

She walks away but spares a look back while opening the car door, and she swears she sees Ben quickly lowering his fist as if he had been pumping it into the air when her back was turned. 

...

  
Fabiola’s eyes scrunch together, studying Devi and Ben with a look she usually reserves for her robots she’s working on.

“Class with you two has been different, but the same.”

Devi and Ben, who are sitting across from her at the lunch table, share a look. 

“What do you mean?” Devi asks. 

“You guys still compete with each other and bicker, but there’s flirty banter thrown in there now,” Fabiola explains. 

“It was always flirty,” Eleanor cuts in, eating a bite of an apple and then wincing. “Except for the Nazi thing.”

It had been two weeks since the night at Ben’s house. They had been doing what they promised, taking things slow. The rumor mill around school, however, didn’t go as slow. By the second day back, they discovered Eleanor accidentally slipped the news to someone in her drama class. A few hours later, some guy from yearbook asked if they should make a “best enemies to lovers” category. She heard some girls in the locker room whisper about it, and Mr. Shapiro started the class by talking about the Christmas Truce of 1914, giving Devi and Ben a pointed look when he stated his hope for recent truces to last longer than nine hours. 

“Your bickering was exhausting before, but now knowing you guys have a thing, makes it a bit more entertaining,” Fabiola continues. “Because now the class isn’t as afraid that one of you is going to bite the others head off.” 

“I make no promises,” Devi says, putting her head on his shoulder and mimicking a biting motion towards Ben’s neck. 

She feels Ben’s arm that is around her waist tighten. “Me either.” 

“Aww,” Eleanor coos the same time Fabiola grimaces and says, “Gross.” 

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Ben winks. 

Devi pulls her head away from his shoulder. “Did you seriously make a dad joke?”

“Hey, it’s not too often I can use my name and try to look cool while saying it, I’m desperate to change the stigma.” 

“Good luck with that, honey.” 

“You guys are in the honey territory?” Eleanor gasps. “Wow, this is heating up fast.”

“I’d say it’s room temperature,” Ben says. 

“Hey, I’m hot,” Devi defends intensely. “So together, we’re a Carolina reaper.”

“So, I’m hot too? Glad to hear you admit it.”

Fabiola begins to zip up her lunch bag with a sour look on her face. “I’m losing my appetite.” 

Eleanor stands up from the table, and tugs at Fabiola’s arm. “Let’s get out of here before they start using science pick-up lines.”

“Hah, like we’d ever,” Devi scoffs. 

“Yeah,” Ben shouts after them as they begin to leave. “We’re not losers!”

Once they’re a safe distance away, Devi leans over to Ben conspiringly. 

“We tell no on that we have,” she whispers. “Deal?”

“Deal,” he agrees, with a haunted look on his face at the idea. 

“ _You two are both losers_ ,” McEnroe says, but his voice fades away as Ben swings his arm around her shoulder.

...

A month later, everything is still going fine. Devi feels like it’s almost going too well if she’s honest.

She’s determined not to make the mistakes she did last time when she was into a guy, though. She spends plenty of her time hanging with her friends, helping Eleanor practice for the spring musical, and lets Fabiola test out her robot that she programmed to brush hair on her. Devi has also been eating dinner with her mom and Kamala nightly. She makes sure to keep them updated on her life while also listening more to what’s going on in theirs.

She also hangs out with Rebecca at least once a week. She gives Rebecca her opinion on outfits and watches the melodramatic shows that none of her friends would watch with her. Paxton would sometimes join them, which was a little awkward but occasionally nice. But he still refused to mention the voicemail or what it meant, making Devi think it hadn’t meant anything at all to him. And even if it had, Devi didn’t want it to. She likes being with Ben, which is why the free time she has not doing any of the above is usually spent with him.

They studied for tests together, went to the mall on weekends trying to go through the entire Jamba Juice menu, and they watched shows and movies in the theatre room in his house. They usually got distracted when they did the last thing, making them have to start over on whatever they were watching once they tore apart from one another. Let’s just say that they’d seen the first five minutes of season three of Stranger Things many times over the past few weeks.

They still argued, of course. How could they not? While they’re taller and know how to use deodorant properly, inside, they’re still those ten-year-olds that used to fight over academic trophies. Except now, they fought about what movie to watch or about what music to listen to in the car. While she wanted to blast Ariana Grande, he wanted to blast songs from his Lonely Island playlist, which often resulted in a battle over Bluetooth connection.

But all those arguments always ended. Not with either of them conceding, but with understanding, because they understood each other in ways they hadn’t before. 

One thing Devi can’t understand, though, is why she is still holding back, why she can’t manage to get the word “boyfriend” to roll off her tongue. At one session, Dr. Ryan told her that defining relationships is necessary because, without doing it, there are no clear roles or expectations. But Devi fears that she’ll somehow lose what relationship she did have with Ben by putting a name to it. 

This is what Devi thinks about as she sits outside the guidance counselor’s office, her leg jiggling as waits for Ben to get out of his meeting that got scheduled right after hers.

After a few more minutes, Ben emerges from the office, shaking the guidance counselor’s hand before closing the door. Devi stands up and walks over to him.

“So, how did it go?” Devi asks.

“Great,” he says, clutching his backpack straps nervously. “You?” 

“Spectacular,” Devi says uneasily. “Only a promising future ahead of me.”

Ben nods, and they both begin to walk in silence. While they’re only sophomore’s, junior year is not that far away, so they have to make sure they take every class they needed to next year for their transcripts. Most colleges look at your junior year and the beginning of your senior year during the application process. They both thought it would be a good idea to make sure they were on track, which is why they both scheduled meetings with the guidance council on the same day.

“She told me I have to join a sport,” he mentions, speaking as if she told him he had to go and get four cavities filled at the dentist. 

Devi stops in the middle of the hallway, turning towards him in surprise. “You too?”

“What is it about schools thinking you need to be in a sport to be well rounded?” he groans. 

“I don’t know. The people who think that clearly have never had to run laps on the track for gym class.” 

“And they clearly don’t know the true sport is that which uses the mind,” Ben says, putting two fingers to his temple.

Devi laughs, linking her arm through his as they continue to walk. “Ben, the nerd in that was astounding.”

He does a mocking bow. “Thank you.”

Once they make it out of the school and into Ben’s car, which he now has a license for, they wait for the traffic in the parking lot to clear a bit because Ben is still a chicken when it comes to driving. 

“So, what sport are you going to do?” he asks, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. 

“Nothing with running,” she says, wincing at the thought of forcing herself to get up early and go on runs that aren’t towards ice cream trucks or boy-band tour buses. “Why run when there are elevators anyway?”

“And escalators.” 

“Exactly,” Devi agrees. “So, I was thinking about doing tennis. It’s the only sport I know anything about, and it involves a bit of running, but not in long paces.”

Devi almost misses the flash of disappointment that crosses his face before it’s replaced with a thin smile. “Oh, that’s a great idea.” 

“Tell that to your face,” Devi says, which makes him frown even more. 

“I’m sorry,” Ben winces. “It is a great idea.”

“But?” Devi asks, encouraging him to continue. 

He sighs and suddenly becomes very interested in looking at the speed pedometer, which is weird because they aren’t even moving yet. 

“It’s nothing—I was just thinking about doing it because my dad’s friend is a tennis coach so he could teach me how not to get hit by a ball every time I get on the court.”

“Then you should do it too,” Devi says, still not understanding the problem.

He starts to pull out into the car line because someone finally lets him in, even though the whole school knows that getting behind Ben means you won’t be getting onto the road anytime soon. 

“I can’t. It would break our rule.” Ben’s eyes flicker between her and the parking lot anxiously, nervous about what was going on in both places. “We never do the same extracurricular.” 

Her face dawns with understanding. “If you did it, that would be the first extra circular we do together. The Model U.N. thing was only temporary.”

“Yeah, so I’ll just pick something else,” he shrugs, but his shoulders are up high as he drives into the line of cars in the right turn lane out of the parking lot. 

Ben and Devi still are highly competitive, but more so in general, instead of with each other. She wants him to succeed, and she knows Ben wants her to as well.

He helped her on a math project she had fallen behind when Devi helped Fabiola when she got the flu a few weeks ago. The highest grade got to plan a party for the class. The teacher had done it as an incentive to make students care about their work even though school was almost over for the year. Ben giving up the bragging rights and helping her win really shows that things have changed between them. 

“We can be in the same sport, and it won’t be a problem,” Devi says casually after thinking it through. “Besides, sports are split up by gender so that we won’t be on the same team.”

“True. It’s just...” Ben’s words drift off, unable to vocalize his thoughts. After a few seconds, he puts on his blinker, pulling over and parking on the side of the road. He turns his head to her slowly, offering a small smile. “I like what we have going. I don’t want to risk ruining it.”

“Neither of us plans to be star athletes. We’re just doing this to round out our application. Plus, we’re not the rivals we once were,” Devi reasons, and begins to lean towards him. “The fact that I can do this proves that.”

Devi kisses him softly, which makes her brain go a little fuzzy. 

“That’s a good point,” Ben murmurs when she pulls away. 

“We respect one another, right?”

Ben nods, so Devi sticks out her hand.

“So, let’s reform our alliance. North Korea and South Korea together again.”

He raised a brow. “No nukes this time?”

“No nukes,” she assures, shaking his hand.

They hold hands between them, on top of the cup holder, as he pulls back onto the road to drive her home. 

“ _There are definitely going to be nukes_ ,” McEnroe says, leaning back in his seat to watch this play out.

...

Stupid Ben. What had he been thinking? She’s fuming with anger as she holds a bag of frozen peas to his face. As she thinks about what happened during tennis practice, she presses the bag down harder on the bruise. 

“Ow,” Ben winces. 

“I’m sorry, but you need to ice it. Recovering from a tennis ball getting smacked on your face isn’t going to be pleasant.”

“The tennis ball hitting my face wasn’t so pleasant either,” he grunts. 

“It wouldn’t have happened if you would t have to challenge Derek Osborne to a one on one match,” she retorts thinly.

Ben opens his mouth to reply but closes it. Devi exhales and tries to steady her breathing, using the relaxation technique her therapist taught her. She knows she isn’t that angry with Ben. Dr. Ryan told her that she sometimes gets angry with people to project her fears onto them. 

Ben getting knocked unconscious by a tennis ball had made her afraid.

“Why did you challenge Derek to a game?” she asks, speaking more calmly this time. “He’s the best guy on the team.”

He adverts his eyes, watching the television in her living room blankly. “I can’t get better unless I don’t challenge myself.”

“I thought you didn’t care about getting better?”

“Well, I didn’t care until…”

“Until what?” 

“Forget it,” he says, shaking his head with an unconvincing smile. “It’s not important.”

She places the bag of peas on the table in front of the couch.

“It is important if it made you think that playing against Derek Osborne was a good idea.”

“You’ve been getting amazing at tennis,” he says after a while, his hands clenched together on his lap. “You’re already as good as the other players."

“Wait, is this all about you feeling emasculated by the fact that I’m athletic?”

“No, of course not,” he replies urgently. “I’m happy that you’re good at it, this wasn’t about restarting our rivalry. I wasn’t trying to prove I was better than you.”

“Then what were you trying to prove?” 

“Well, like I was saying, you’re doing well at tennis. I saw you getting along with the team and eyeing Derek when he bent over to get a tennis ball while you talked to him.”

“So, you were jealous?” she asks with a hint of a smile. 

“No! Well, maybe little,” he admits, nervously itching the spot behind his ear. “I guess I just thought since we haven’t labeled our relationship yet, you didn’t want to be exclusive, so maybe you were starting something with Derek. I thought you were ready to move onto the next thing—to him. So, I wanted to prove I was worth being in the running by playing against him. Which did not go my way, obviously.” 

John McEnroe begins to talk about all the ways it didn’t go Ben’s way on the tennis court and how it would make a great tennis player fails video on YouTube, but Devi silences his voice as she edges towards Ben on the couch.

She places the hand on his unwounded cheek. “You never stopped being the running, Ben. You didn’t need to try and prove anything. I’m not interested in him. I’m only interested in you.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah, dummy,” she laughs, pushing playfully on his chest to make the solemn look on his face go away. “He’s nice to look at and good for getting tennis tips, but I don’t like him like that.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” he says. “His blonde hair and toned arms make him look like Apollo if he was the tennis’s god instead of the sun.” 

She smirks. “Are you trying to talk me into dating him?” 

“No, I just meant that we never talked about being exclusive, so I have no right to say who you like,” Ben states concretely. “Even though the thought of you and someone else makes me want to throw a tennis ball at them, but I would miss because I’m terrible at tennis.”

“I want to be exclusive with you. I should’ve clarified this before,” Devi sighs, folding her legs criss-cross on the couch. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. There are two people in this relationship. I could’ve said something, but I was too afraid I would scare you off.”

Devi grabs his hand with a small smile. “Well, you haven’t.”

“So,” Ben says, batting his big blues at her. “Can I call you my girlfriend?”

“I suppose that would be fine if I can call you my boyfriend.” 

He jokingly tosses his head back and forth, as if considering this. “I think that works for me.”

“So, we’re officially boyfriend and girlfriend,” Devi decrees. She reaches over, taping his bruised cheek gently. “As long as you don’t get any more bruises on your face.”

Ben grabs the bag of peas, placing it to his face with a grimace. “I think I’ll stick with being the third alternate.”

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She nestles into Ben’s side—her boyfriend’s side, feeling as if she was glowing and not because she was still a bit sweaty from tennis practice.

...

“Why are you sweating so much?”

“Because this is California, it’s always hot, and it’s the summer,” Ben replies, fanning himself with a notecard for his last A.P. Biology quiz that he forgot to throw out for the past few weeks after school ended. 

She grabs his arms as they reach her doorstep, forcing him to remain still. “Dude, you don’t need to be nervous. My mom weirdly likes you. And this isn’t your first dinner over here. You come three times a week.”

“Yeah, but that was before your mom knew that we’re dating. Before I was just that kid who cried in her office, but now I’m a threat to her daughter’s innocence.”

“A threat to my innocence?” Devi says with a bemused laugh. 

Ben throws his hands up in exasperation. “You know what I mean.”

“Listen. Is my mom pissed that I’m dating when it’s a rule that I can’t? Yes. Does she want to kill you? Probably.” Ben’s eyes grow wide in alarm, and Devi runs a hand soothingly over his arm, so his eyes don’t jump out of his head. “But she doesn’t blame only you. She also blames me because she thinks I have no control over my hormones. So, the heat will be on both of us tonight.”

“Yeah, but if she decides to add extra heat into the dinner, you can take it. My tongue will be burning for days if she takes out her fury on my food.” 

“I think I can do without your tongue. You’ll answer fewer questions in class when we go back to school in the fall, and give all the glory to me.”

“Ha,” Ben huffs out, unamused. 

“Seriously, though, don’t worry. Whatever happens in there is not going to change this,” Devi says, gesturing between them. “Except if your tongue explodes, then the only change will be Frenching less.”

He takes a step towards her, a gleam of something darker sparking in his eyes. “Maybe we should make up for the future right now.”

Devi rolls her eyes but leans up to kiss him regardless of how awful that line was. Maybe his pick up line wasn’t so horrible, because it’s what made her hands start to roam over his chest and a pit in her stomach begin to ache for a need to be close to him. 

Devi feels like laughing at her past self as they kiss on her front step. Past Devi has no idea that Ben will sneak up on her and take something she already gave away to him without noticing it. 

They also don’t notice Devi’s mom opening the door a minute later. But she makes her presence known by clearing her throat so loud that the neighbors five houses down could probably hear her. Devi grimaces, and Ben flinches away from her so fast that he knocks his head against the banister.

“Making out on the front porch is a great way to give me an appetite,” she drawls sarcastically, her lips turning down in disapproval. 

Ben starts blinking at a rapid pace. “Sorry, Mrs. V.”

Her mom doesn’t seem that affected by his apology; she merely opens the door wider for them to step through, and walks towards the dining room with a stone-cold expression. 

“Ok, a bit of a rocky start,” Devi says uneasily to Ben as they follow her inside. “We can make up lost ground during dinner, though. Just talk about her favorite things.”

She regretted giving him that advice when he started to blabber on about skin and zits while her mother started serving the food.

But by the time they were halfway through their first servings, it started to get better. It only took one laugh from Devi’s mother to ease the tension in the room. 

Devi didn’t know which of them made the first move, but halfway through dinner, their hands found one another underneath the table. When her mother started grilling Ben, she gave his hand a gentle squeeze. After answering all of her mother’s questions, he squeezed it back. 

As Devi was next to Ben later that night, putting on his jacket near the door, her mother approaches them. 

“Ben, the girls are going camping with Fabiola’s parents. They told me they’re bringing their significant others, and I decided you could accompany them.”

Ben freezes, one arm through a sleeve, and the other up in the air. 

Devi’s mom looks back and forth at the both of them, a quirked brow raised. “Has Devi not told you?”

“I didn’t, because I thought there was no way you’d agree to let him come,” Devi says, looking at her carefully to comprehend what the catch is. 

“Well, I am.” She walks up to Ben in a huff, putting the other arm entirely in his sleeve. “I hope you have all the proper equipment.”

“I know how to handle myself out there, Mrs. V,” he chuckles uneasily, giving her a thumbs up. 

She purses her lips but doesn’t challenge him on that statement. She only nods before walking away. 

Devi turns to Ben with a half-smile. “You have never been camping, have you?”

“No,” he admits lowly. “The most I’ve ever roughed was when I fell asleep in the backyard of Nick Offerman’s cabin once when my Dad was helping him on a lawsuit.” 

“You don’t have to go camping if you don’t want to.”

“No, I want to,” he quickly assures. “I like spending time with you, and it’ll be fun. We’ll have trailers, right?”

“Oh, my sweet innocent Ben,” Devi says while opening the front door. She guides him out by putting her arms around his shoulders. “I need to introduce you to the world of tents that blow over in the wind and musty sleeping bags.”

...

They’re sitting around the campfire while Oliver is on his third attempt to cook a hot dog. He keeps getting distracted while telling a scary story about a man with a hook hand and a vendetta against campers who made fun of him.

Eleanor is fascinated by the tale, hanging onto his every word. Eve and Fabiola are laughing at Oliver’s story. The scary tale they both came up with making whatever came next seem more entertaining than frightening. The two watch a lot of true crime documentaries together, making them a shoo-in to win the campout scary story competition the girls had every year.

Ben and Devi are sharing a chair. She sits on his lap with her head ducked onto his shoulder. Not because she’s scared, but because she is trying to take a nap until Oliver finishes his story.

Devi hates scary stories, so most of the time, she tried to make everyone white noise until they were all over. She would never understand why you would want to make yourself scared. They were high schoolers, weren’t their lives scary enough?

“Alright, it’s Viswakumar and Gross’ turn,” Oliver says once he’s finished, looking a little sad by everyone’s lack of terror about his story.

“Make sure to top Devi’s story from last year about the ghost yeti that terrorized campers just to feel something again,” Fabiola tells Ben, causing Eve to laugh.

Devi crossed her arms. “You guys know I hate this part of the camping trip. It’s so cliché. Can’t we compete for the best celebrity conspiracy theory instead?”

“We should!” Ben exclaims, sitting up in the chair. “With Devi’s obsession with drama and my inside scoop on my dad’s clients, we’d totally win.”

“But that’s not the tradition,” Eleanor points out sternly.

“Yeah, you guys should come up with one together,” Fabiola suggests. “But try not to tell a story about a gummy worm who realized he wasn’t an actual worm.”

Ben looks at Devi with his eyebrows furrowed. “How’s that scary?”

“Facing your identity is scary!” she defends heatedly. She groans and raises her hands to halt anyone from talking. “I’m not having this argument again.”

“Ben, you start,” Eve turns to Oliver. “Pass him the s’more stick.”

Oliver grumpily gives it up and hands the stick to Ben.

Ben grips the stick, toying with it as he tried thinking of what to say. “Alright. Once upon a time—.”

“Fairytales aren’t scary,” Oliver interrupts.

“You’re biased by Disney adaptions. In the Grimm Brothers’ original fairy tales, the stepsisters from Cinderella cut off their heels and toes to try and fit into the slipper and get their eyes pecked out by birds.”

“I know that!” Eleanor shouts proudly. “It’s in _Into the Woods_. I saw a production of it last year.”

“Let Ben continue,” Devi says to everyone.

“You’re just saying that because you want to hear about princess instead of ax murders,” Fabiola says with an accusing look.

“Sue me for preferring talking about princesses over serial killers,” she says, putting her hands up in mock defense. “How dare I.”

“Once upon a time, there were these two kids, who met in the woods,” Ben continues, ignoring all of them. “In this section of the woods, people fought over who sat on the library on the map rug, who got the cheetah stuffed animal during playtime, and fought over seats when they played musical chairs to the song Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

“Ok, spiders are scary, I’ll give him that,” Fabiola mutters to Eve.

“One member of the woods, a boy who had an abacus instead of a calculator, came across a girl who he didn’t know would be his most dangerous foe.”

“Who was it?” Oliver asks, now looking to captivated by the story.

“The girl with all the Lisa Frank folders.”

Devi’s ears peak up at this. She looks at him questioningly, but his face is straight ahead, looking at his audience.

“She sang the whole alphabet backward and forwards to impress the others in the woods, even when people were trying to nap.”

Devi crosses her arms. “I recall the abacus boy would talk during random points in the class—I mean, woods, and would answer addition problems no one asked him to solve.”

“Yes, the abacus boy did this for a reason,” Ben turns to her as he says this, the arm that had been around her waist retreating and going to grip the s’more talking stick. There’s a nervous look in his eyes, and it makes her feel colder despite being so near to the campfire. “He did it impress the Lisa Frank fanatic.”

Devi’s mouth falls open, in the comical way it does it cartoons.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Ben nods. “He was so impressed by her, and he thought solving math problems would get her attention.”

“Is this supposed to scary because you had no game with girls?” Eve smirks.

“One day, when they took a spelling test, they both tied, challenging the spot for the ruler of the woods.”

“I can take it from here,” Devi interrupts, surprising everyone, including herself. She stands off the chair, the dark consuming part of her appearance as she speaks, but the light of the fire illuminates her facial expression that is struggling between amusement and something more somber. “They both sat together for two weeks—Two great weeks. They used their powers together, working their way to the top of the circle of life in the woods.”

“There’s no top to it because it’s a circle,” Ben says behind her in the chair, but his retort is quieter than usual.

“They colored together, quizzed each other, even stayed in at recess to help the teacher clean up the classroom to get an extra gold sticker.”

“I’m sensing a but coming,” Eleanor whispers to Oliver.

“But it all ended the day when they took a math test, and she got a higher score. That made him sit away from her table and break her favorite Polly Pocket, starting a feud over who was the smartest of the group in the woods.”

She turns around, looking at him to share a smile over the start of their rivalry. But instead, she is met with that puppy dog look on his face, the one that she saw on that bus after Model U.N., the one that made the barricades around her fall an inch lower into the ground. She doesn’t understand it—he knows all this already. Why does he look so wounded by telling him something that they both already knew?

“So, the Lisa Frank fanatic promised to defeat him at every competition in the woods for the sake of her pride and her Polly Pocket,” she finishes, her words coming out more slowly as she studies Ben in confusion.

“Can we stop this woods metaphor?” Fabiola asks. “We know you guys are talking about when you met in the first grade.”

Ben stands up, the look on his face unreadable, which is frustrating because she can’t stand not understanding something.

“I didn’t sit away from you because I was jealous,” he says.

“Yes, you did,” Devi insists, her eyebrows scrunching together. “After we both took our math tests, you switched tables, and the next day you snapped my Polly Pocket in half, and said you would never lose to me again.”

“I didn’t switch tables because I was mad, I switched tables because you told the teacher I cheated off you during our math test,” he explains.

Despite the context of the sentence, there is no resentment in his tone as he speaks. Instead, it’s more of a sadness.

“I thought you did it so I would get a lower score than you, so that’s why I got mad and broke the Polly Pocket,” Ben continues.

Devi’s shoulders drop, and she finds herself frowning. “I never turned you in for cheating.”

It was his turn to be confused. “You didn’t?”

“No.”

“ _Oh, this is getting interesting_ ,” McEnroe says, and Devi pictures him with a bucket of popcorn in his lap.

Ben rubs at his neck. “But that math test was only taken by five students, and I remember that you stayed after to talk to the teacher about something when we all left.”

“About the fact that we should be given the option of chocolate milk, not just regular. I remember that because I, unfortunately, learned when she took my advice that having chocolate in it didn’t make me more tolerant of it.”

“If you didn’t lie about me cheating, then who did?”

Eleanor shifted on the log. “Um...”

Everyone’s heads whipped towards Eleanor. Even Fabiola, who before was the least interested in the story, was now on the edge of her seat.

“I was a kid,” Eleanor says, meekly putting her hands into her pockets and looking down at the ground. “I was jealous you and Ben were becoming such good friends, and I wanted to sit next to you to make sure we were still close. I left a note on her desk, and she assumed it was from Devi. If I would’ve known it would’ve sparked your whole rivalry, I never would have done it.”

Ben chokes out a laugh. “I can’t believe this.”

“Me either,” Devi says. “Our whole rivalry was based on a misunderstanding.”

His lips twitch, whether into a frown or smile, she isn’t sure due to the darkness of the night.

“We were never really arch-nemeses. Were we?”

“Not to begin with, but we turned ourselves into them for sure.”

There was a beat of silence, the kind she’d seen people write about in their scripts for film class. She has never understood the need for a beat. Devi likes action, using words or cues to fill the blank space on the page. But now, she began to appreciate the importance of a beat, that it can sometimes leave much more of an impact on the script than words of dialogue.

“Alright, enough scary stories and that one backstory,” Oliver says, standing up. “I’m going to bed.”

He heads towards one of the tents, and Fabiola and Eve are next.

“You guys lose by the way,” Fabiola mentions as they both pass them.

Eleanor gives them both an apologetic look before disappearing into a tent after them.

When they’re alone, Ben’s expression turns from overwhelmed to a peaceful sort-of thoughtfulness.

“You look beautiful,” he says, his gaze heavy and light all at once.

She looks down at herself amusedly, pulling on her the pocket of her old sweatshirt. “With my hair all frizzy and the smell of campfire smoke on me?”

“Yes,” Ben says without hesitation.

They find themselves echoing the position they were in a few minutes prior, curled up together on one chair without any idea how they got there. It’s ironic, considering that a few moments ago, they realized that they had no idea how they became the Ben and Devi most of the school knows. The ones who used to spar ruthlessly in class and shove graded papers in each other’s faces.

“Do you ever miss it?” Devi finds herself asking Ben.

“Miss what?”

“Snapping at one another in class, competing for the best grade?”

He smiles. “David, we still do that.”

“Yeah, but our retorts don’t have the same bite to them,” she clarifies, poking the fire with the s’more stick to make it crackle. “Do you miss when we were vicious to each other?”

Ben looks at her suspiciously. “Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

He takes a deep breath as he considers this. She hears bugs chirping in the background, and the sound of trees rustling in the slight breeze. Devi almost swears that she can hear his answer before he speaks. But that would be crazy. Devi may be a hopeless romantic at heart, but she’s not that hopeless.

“No, I don’t,” Ben admits, rubbing the small of her back. “I like that we’re still able to be competitive, but we don’t have to throw insults at each other in every other sentence. They became kind of empty statements after a while. What about you?”

Devi looks down, staring at the blue flames hidden amongst the aggressive orange ones in the campfire. Orange and red flames are easier to produce, you don’t have to be picky with the wood you use to make this kind of fire. While its color emanates power, she learned in science that red and orange flames signify incomplete combustion, a lack of oxygen—a lack of life.

Orange flames look impressive as the colors scream through the night, but in truth, they are colder than the blue flames. Blue fire shows that complete combustion has taken place. Complete combustion releases energy, heat, and light at the maximum amount. Devi used to think that blue flames were pesky interruptions, demoting the bright blaze of the campfire. But now, she understands the subtly of the blue flame and feels it’s warmth welcoming her to put her hands above it.

What she has now with Ben is like a blue flame. It’s a gentle kind of fire that burns much longer, especially when two torches are lit by one another, making both of them shine like a beacon in the dark.

“I don’t miss it either,” Devi finally replies, handing the stick over to Ben. He takes it, putting a marshmallow at the end of it and holding it over the fire. “Sometimes, I forget that we ever hated each other. I look at you right now, and I can’t imagine hating you.”

She follows Ben’s eyes down to the blue flame she was looking at previously. It’s moments like these that make her wonder how she missed all the signs, how she didn’t see their similarities when she used to swear by the fact that the two of them were vastly different.

“I don’t think I ever hated you. I think I only said I did because I thought you hated me,” Ben says, his eyes focused on the flame. “I downright disliked you, but it was like a part of me couldn’t completely hate you. Like I was waiting for something to change.”

Devi knows what he means, and tells him as much when she leans in to kiss him, and he meets her halfway.

It’s not a skillful or thrilling kiss, but it has a cozy feeling to it. Devi can taste the chocolate on his tongue. They lazily kiss like they’re in a dream that they don’t want to wake up from.

Devi begins to smell something burning. She jolts away from him and points at the fire.

“Your marshmallow is burning!”

Ben, inspects the crisp marshmallow with indifference. “It’s alright. I like it this way.”

She sticks her tongue out. “That’s gross, Gross.”

“Come on, try it,” he goads her, waving the stick at her. “It makes it super gooey on the inside.”

She narrows her eyes at him and the marshmallow, and Ben gives that curious but eager look he gets when he’s challenging her about something. This look is one that’s so familiar and makes it impossible to resist taking the bait.

Devi grabs the burnt marshmallow and the rest of the ingredients. She smashes it inside a graham cracker with chocolate on top of it. She holds it in her hands like it’s a grenade that’s about to go off any second.

Before Devi can rethink it, she stuffs the disgusting looking snack into her mouth. Ben watches her as she chews slowly, his eyes gleaming with anticipation.

“So?” he asks expectantly.

She takes a second to swallow, trying to make sure her face doesn’t show what she really thinks.

“It’s fine,” Devi shrugs, licking her fingers to get rid of the stickiness, not because she enjoyed it or anything.

He tilts his head back as he groans. “Oh, come on, that’s the best s’more you’ve ever had in your entire life!”

“No, you got to put peanut butter cups in it instead of chocolate and cook the marshmallow to a golden brown. That’s the best s’more in existence.”

“You can’t just go replacing chocolate bars with Reese’s. The recipe for a s’more is a classic!”

It’s her turn to give him a challenging look. “Are you saying all things that are old aren’t problematic and in need of revising?”

“Most old things need revising. But when it comes to an iconic camping dessert? No.”

“Who’s the one with the camping experience here? You or me?”

“Fine,” he sighs in defeat. “Make me one.”

They sit in comfortable silence as Devi takes her time to toast the s’more to golden perfection, and Ben doesn’t complain about how long it takes once. She makes sure to place the Reese's Peanut Butter cup in just the right spot before sealing it with graham crackers on each side.

Devi hands it to him, and Ben chews it slowly. He feigns boredom like one does when someone is plays cards and tries to hide the fact that they have a good hand.

He mimics her shrug from earlier. “It’s fine.”

“It’s delicious, and you know it,” she says, jabbing his finger at his chest.

“Fine, it’s amazing,” Ben says, taking another bite. “Happy?”

Devi snuggles into his side, taking the rest of the s’more from his and finishes it with a blissful smile.

“Very.”

…

It’s the prom of their junior year. Devi buys a lilac dress that’s longer than she wants it to be. But her mother approves of this one, and she finds herself fond of it all the same. It has darker purple flowers scattered amongst the tulle. The sleeves are see-through, and her skirt flows in the air when she twirls, like something right out of a storybook.

They take pictures at Devi’s house, everyone’s parents except Ben’s point cameras at them that makes the flash stung their eyes. Devi, Eleanor, and Fabiola do the stereotypical Charlie’s Angel’s pose.

It’s hard not to laugh when they split up to take those awkward pictures with their dates. They hold each other at arm’s length for the sake of their parents. But when the camera flashes on them, Ben pulls his hands tighter around her waist, and she is sure that the picture will show her eyes rolling with a blush on her cheeks.

They all stuff themselves into Ben’s car afterward. Oliver sits on the floor of the backseat, causing Ben to panic when a cop passes by them when they’re five minutes away from school.

When they arrive, Devi, Eleanor, and Fabiola run towards the photo booth with prop hats and cliché signs that say phrases like “best night ever” and “BFF’s for life.” It makes the three of them cringe in the best way possible.

Most of the dance is pretty stereotypical. Her dress shimmers underneath the colored lights in the gym, making Devi look like she is glowing as she dances with her two best friends, their dates, and hers. Ben’s dance moves are embarrassing but endearing, and she tugs on his matching lilac tie when they slow dance.

It isn’t until an hour of dancing when she’s taking a break in the hallway that a teen-movie like plot twist happens to her.

Devi has trouble keeping her balance as she runs after Ben. How do women in movies manage to stay upright during an action sequence? Male directors probably have them wear heels to give their character an excuse to fall into their love interest’s arms.

But Devi doesn’t think Ben would catch her if she fell after what he saw a minute ago.

“Ben wait—please!” she shouts after him.

Ben’s back remains turned away, his legs on a mission to get far away from her.

“I gotta go,” she hears Ben mutter as he walks out the school's front door.

Devi jiggles on one foot for a few seconds, trying to take off her shoes. After she gets them off, she charges towards him while thanking her luck that she’s running pavement instead of gravel.

“Please stop,” she urges.

When she makes it close enough to him, she grabs his arm to stop him from moving.

Ben freezes. While she can’t see his face, she feels as if his heartbreak is radiating onto her. It makes her stomach lurch.

Devi pants, trying to catch her breath so she can speak. “It wasn’t what you think.”

“I think I saw what happened pretty clearly.”

“Just let me explain,” Devi urges, her fingers desperately clinging to his arm.

She wishes she never wanted him to turn around when he finally faces her. His eyes aren’t flaming with anger, or frozen with a coldness like she expected them to. Instead, they’re blank. Like everything he once felt for her was wiped clean in that hallway.

“What is there to explain?” Ben snaps, his vacant expression cracking into something else that makes her heart twist painfully. “You were kissing Paxton. End of story.”

“You kissed me while you were dating someone else.”

She immediately regrets that defense the second that it comes out of her mouth. Ben’s eyebrows furrow as he starts to walk away again.

“Ok, that was not the right thing to bring up and it’s so not the same,” she cringes, trying to keep up with him. “I’m sorry.”

He stops again, and his eyes bore into hers like she’s an equation he is having trouble solving.

“Sorry that it happened, or sorry you got caught doing it?” he faintly asks, as if he doesn’t actually want to know the answer.

It is an easy question—probably the easiest question she’s ever had to answer.

“Sorry that it happened.”

The quickness to her response seems to soothe Ben a bit, but his face still twists unpleasantly.

“Ben, please listen. After I explain and you decide to hate me again, I understand.” Devi reaches for his arm again, slowly as if she’s wading in her feet to test how cold the water is. When he doesn’t flinch away, she touches his other arm. “I can’t stand you not knowing what really happened.”

It takes a few seconds, but he eventually nods.

“Paxton cams up to me in the hall while you went out to get us punch. He started saying all this stuff, and how he regretted not reciprocating my feelings sooner and brushing me off, he wanted to be with me.”

She pauses in her explanation, trying to gauge Ben’s reaction. But his expression is indecipherable. Devi gears herself up to keep talking, even though the words taste like a disgusting cherry flavored medicine.

“I was just so thrown off that when he kissed me, I kissed back.”

Ben’s eyes drift away from her at the school behind them, where the soft hum of music can be heard from where they are outside. It’s an upbeat song that Devi knows she has most likely banged her head to in his car before, causing him to roll his eyes with a smile.

A rush of fear runs through her at the thought of never being able to produce that smile again.

“If you kissed back, that means it meant something,” Ben says quietly, his jaw twitching, which makes her want to reach out and touch it.

“But not what you think,” Devi insists, hearing her voice crack. “It doesn’t mean I have feelings for Paxton. It means the opposite.”

“How does it mean the opposite?”

“You know how I harbored this huge crush on him last year, right?”

He takes a step back from her, making Devi’s hands fall to her sides. “Yes, as I recall, it made you regain your ability to walk, real fairytale stuff.”

“It went away when we got together. But a part of me wondered what would have happened if Paxton felt how I felt. But when we kissed, I felt nothing.”

That sentence seems to wake him up. He looks as if she’d just dropped a stack of books on his desk, startled but thankful to be awake.

“It didn’t feel like it did last year when he and I kissed,” she continues, taking a tentative step towards him. “And it was nothing compared to the way I feel when I kiss you.”

There’s a moment where the clouds part and hope beams through on his face, but then he’s pinching the bridge of his nose, letting more clouds roll into the sky.

“But you kissed him back in the first place,” he says, his eyes looking glassy. “How can I mean something to you, if you forget about me the second Paxton shows interest?”

“Ben, it’s not like that,” Devi insists, desperation edging her words. “The whole situation tricked me into thinking I was still who I used to be, but I’m not that person anymore. I thought I knew that before, but it turns out that I just needed to write the last chapter on that part of my life before closing the book.”

“But now the book is done?”

“Yes, completely. I’m on the next one, and you’re a part of it. A big part,” Devi emphasizes, braving closer to him and grabbing his hand. She pulls it to her chest, resting it there and having a hard time imagining ever letting it go. “You may even be a recurring character in a series of books who sticks around for a long time.”

Suddenly, she sees the sun breakthrough as he smiles. It’s not the grand Ben smile that she loves so much. It’s the hesitant one. But she feels a sense of relief that she can still put a smile in some form on his face. That has to mean something.

Ben’s fingers begin to become less rigid, curling around hers. “When we first started dating, you told me I shouldn’t be someone’s second choice. You shouldn’t be someone’s, and I don’t want to be yours.”

“You’re not. It doesn’t matter who I liked first or second, it matters who I like now, and you’re the one I like.”

“ _You can do better than that Devi_ ,” McEnroe encourages gently. “ _Come on, say it_!” 

Devi pushes back a strand of her hair that had fallen from her up-do, trying to stick it back into place. She knows McEnroe is right. She can’t keep holding back what she feels because she’d afraid. What’s the point of not telling someone how much you care about them anyway? Sure, it could lead to some embarrassment, but Devi knows the importance of telling someone how you feel on the off chance that you might not ever be able to say to them again.

She takes a deep breath, letting the words tumble freely from her lips.

“You’re the one I love.”

His shoulders unstiffen, and she feels as if she’s won a ticket to a Beyoncé concert when he takes a cautious step towards her, wonderment in his eyes.

“You love me?”

Devi nods, her smile unbashful. “I do.”

His face as he stares at her is a bit dopy, but also a bit cute—the expression is so Ben that Devi wonders to herself why it took so long for her to say I love you to this boy.

She shuffles her feet on the cold pavement when the silence starts to become unbearable.

“So, are you going to say anything? It’s getting a little chilly out—.”

He swiftly dips his head down to capture her lips. Devi takes in a breath of surprise but quickly responds, kissing him back.

It’s better than either of her kisses with Paxton. It’s better than any kiss she’s had with Ben up to this point. It doesn’t feel like a maybe, or like they're testing of waters and holding something back. No, this kiss feels like a beginning. It’s a gate swinging open to let her inside.

When they come up for air, Ben pulls back, his eyes locking on to hers.

“I love you too, Devi.”

Devi runs her hands up and down his tie, tugging it down gently, making her lips ghost close to his.

“I’m glad to know that we agree on something.”

They aren’t under any disco ball, and she didn’t feel the bass of the music on the floor, but she does feel like she is dancing when they start to sway together on the pavement.

...

“Happy anniversary,” Devi says, holding out her glass filled with sparkling water.

He clinked his glass against hers. “Happy anniversary.”

Devi holds up the smaller menu of the three, scanning it in bafflement. “Everything here looks so good.”

“Really?”

“Why wouldn’t it look good?”

“Because you’re looking at the salad menu,” he points out with a grin. “You hate salads.”

“I do not. I think I need more salad in my life,” she lies, fidgeting in the fancy chair that’s probably more expensive than any of the furniture in her house. “Salads are the earth’s gift to us in the form of leaves, and…whatever else is in a salad.”

“You can get anything you want. It’s my treat.”

She drops her head. “I know I want a salad.”

“Devi,” he says lowly, giving her a pointed look.

She sighs, putting down the menu. “Ben, everything is so expensive. You know I’m not usually the one to complain about nice things, because I like nice things, but I know you’re trying to save up for college.”

While his family is loaded, Ben decided that he wants to do the college experience independently, without the financial support from his parents. She doesn’t think using their monetary support would be a bad thing, but she respects Ben’s decision, and paying for fancy dinners like this would probably cost him a lot of money that he doesn’t have.

“Don’t worry, I mowed some lawns for this date,” he assures with a proud grin. “The lawns are huge in my neighborhood, so I got this covered.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You mowed lawns?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s less believable then me wanting a salad. You have terrible grass and pollen allergies. Remember when your face broke out when we forgot the blanket for our picnic and had to sit on the grass?”

“Yeah, but that was during allergy season,” he defends self-consciously. “With a mask and highly dosed on allergy meds, it wasn’t so bad.”

Devi’s shoulders slug as an understanding hits her. She leans back onto the chair with a frown.

“Oh, I get it now.”

“Get what?”

“What this is all about,” she says, gesturing around them.

His eyebrows are drawn together in confusion. “Uh, it’s about our anniversary.”

“Give it up, Ben. I know you’ve been frustrated. You’ve been patient, but enough is enough, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You want to have sex!”

Ben’s face pales as Devi’s turns a shade of crimson as she realizes what she just shouted in a very fancy restaurant that’s suddenly gone down a few decimal levels in volume.

“ _Nice one Devi_ ,” John McEnroe says, and she can almost see him in front of her, rolling his eyes. “ _At least your outburst was only in front of twenty people in a restaurant. Lapses in my temper were all aired for millions of viewers to see across the world_.” 

It takes half a minute for Devi and Ben to realize their waiter had come up sometime during their exchange. He’s currently standing beside their table with a deer in headlights look on his face.

Their waiter begins to back away slowly, putting his notepad back into his apron.

“I’ll just give you two a few more minutes,” he says, not meeting either of their eyes as he scampers off.

“Bring some water, please,” Ben calls after him hoarsely, touching his throat.

Devi anxiously picks up a breadstick in the basket, hoping it will be easier to talk after sticking delicious carbs in her mouth.

“I’m right, right?” she asks between bites.

Ben finally comes back to earth, fidgeting with his tie around his neck. “No—I mean, I want that eventually, but I’m not frustrated or expecting anything. This dinner was just that, a dinner.”

Devi swallows, a wave of relief washing over her. “Really?”

“Yes,” Ben nods. He reaches for her hand, holding it firmly. “Devi, you don’t need to speed up anything because you think it’s what I want. It should be when you’re ready—when we’re both ready.”

She sighs in relief.

“I do want to get there eventually. I don’t know if it’ll be next month or in a few years, but I know it’s not right now. Applications have been stressful, so the timing hasn’t felt right.” Devi runs a hand through her hair, which is a bit stiff from the hairspray she used. “I want it to be perfect—well, not perfect, but at least without having to spare glimpses at my textbook during it.”

“That would be preferable,” Ben says, his lip on one side tilting up. “Although, quizzing each other could be fun.”

“You’re such a nerd.”

He takes a breadstick, chewing it with a coy smirk. “That’s not a no.”

“I knew it wasn’t a problem. You would’ve told me if it was,” Devi says, relaxing back in her seat. “But there’s been this small voice in the back of my head telling me that you feel like you’re missing out by being with me.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because of you and Shira.”

Ben draws in a sharp breath, tugging on the tablecloth as he says, “I never did that with Shira.”

Devi blinks in confusion. “But you guys were together for a long time?”

“Yeah, but most of that time involved taking pictures of our food or with matching Starbucks orders for Instagram.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Devi nods. “So, you’re not upset?”

“No, of course not. I admit that I was a little worried before, but I’m definitely not upset,” Ben says, picking up his menu.

Devi reaches over, pushing it back down. “Why were you worried?”

He squirms in his chair. “Well, the first time you talked to Paxton, you asked him to have sex with you, but the subject hasn’t come up that much since we got together.”

“I thought I was ready when I wasn’t,” she clarifies. “Now, I know more what it means, and how much it matters to choose the right person.”

Ben smiles softly, taking in her meaning.

Devi turns her eyes down to the three menus. “Now, are we ready to order?”

“You getting a salad?”

“Hell no,” she scoffs, pushing aside the small menu and favoring the big one. “Fancy pasta, here I come.”

When he smiles, and she smiles back, the room suddenly becoming more romantic around her. She sees the twinkle of the lights hanging on the wall and hears the melody of the music playing in the restaurant more clearly.

The waiter then appears. They both almost burst out laughing as he shakily pours them more water and rushes aware before he can overhear anything else.

…

It’s weird to think that they’re already seniors. This summer slipped through her fingers. She remembers blurs of her, Fabiola, and Eleanor eating popcorn and watching trashy movies that she couldn’t remember the titles to during the summer. Memories of them at the beach, running across the sand and playing chicken in the waves.

Her memories with Ben involve touring colleges as he attempted to carry her on his back before giving up after two minutes. They walked and looked at every corner of the campus while also having their noses stuck in their brochures. She thinks about the start of senior year a few months ago, swinging hands down the hallway while getting into heated debates in the classroom. There’d also been many long nights that didn’t feel that long at all, talking over text, over the phone, or in-person on the rare occasions her mother let him sleep in their living room so he didn’t have to drive back to his house so late.

Speaking of her mom, Devi knows that she is starting to get a little worried. While her mom likes Ben and doesn’t shoot him stone-cold expressions across the dinner table anymore, she’s been giving Devi these worried looks when she sees them together. It’s like she’s waiting for the seams of their relationship to start tearing apart.

The plan was always to date around in high school to practice before she went to college. But Devi’s beginning to learn that reality doesn’t unfold like a story in a script. Instead, it evolves like a skit in a bad college improv practice. Everyone makes things up as they go, and you have to roll with the punches. In improv, you get a complicated but ultimately better story than the one you could’ve planned out for yourself.

She could never have planned falling in love with Ben. But, being with him was amazing. Spending time with him was one of the best parts of her day. So, she should be glad for the unexpected.

But the unexpected is like a coin, two-sided, and can change your luck whenever reality lands on the wrong side.

It starts by her taking her eyes off her notes, seeing Ben scrolling on his phone.

“What are you doing?” she asks, slightly disgruntled because he’s breaking their no phones during their study time.

He continues to scroll. “Taking the Buzzfeed which Disney prince I would be.”

“You don’t need to take a quiz for that. I already know you’re Eric.”

He drops his phone on his lap, looking at her in disbelief. “Eric from _The Little Mermaid_?”

“Yes. He’s the only Disney prince who doesn’t sing, and you can’t carry a tune to save your life.”

“I’m not him,” he says, oddly looking offended for a guy who just got compared to one of the hottest Disney princes in Devi’s opinion. “That guy is as dumb as the rock Ariel sings on at the end of Part of Your World!”

“You’d be a more intelligent version of him,” Devi assures, falling back onto the bed and looking up at the ceiling. “But you are like him, burdened by family legacy, striking out on your own, you just need a ship.”

His right eyebrow shoots up. “So I can catch you, the Little Mermaid?”

“I am not Ariel,” Devi says icily. “That girl has got good hair and an impressive collection of utensils. But giving it all up for a man and not knowing the right word for a fork? No, thank you.”

“Ok, so not in those aspects, but others.” He reaches over and pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, bringing warmth to her face. “You both are adventurous and determined, and you know what you want and go after it.”

“I’m sensing a great Halloween couples costume for next year,” she smirks.

“What about our Rey and Kylo Ren idea?”

“It’s too divisive for a couple’s costume,” she says, her nose wrinkling.

He lays back on the bed next to her, his head hitting his pillow. “True, I don’t want to wear that mask and cape anyway.”

She pivots towards him on her side, so they’re facing each other. “Why, does it look too much like your weekend wear when you go to Nerds-R-Us?”

Ben makes an unamused noise, grabbing his forgotten textbook and putting it so close to his face that he couldn’t possibly be reading the words on the page.

Devi laughs, propping her elbow on the pillow and watching his eyes narrow at the book in fake concentration. She lets her eyes drift behind him to his bedside table. There, she sees a stack of envelopes she didn’t notice before crammed underneath his lamp.

“What are those?”

He looks up from the textbook, following her gaze. When he sees what she’s referring to, he quickly looks back at his textbook.

“They’re just my college acceptance letters,” he answers too casually, flipping a page of his book that he is so not reading.

Devi gets up, walking around to the other side of the bed. She lifts the lamp off the desk and takes the stack of letters in her hands. Ben doesn’t move, but she can feel him watching her out of the corners of his eyes.

“It’s so weird that you're your Princeton letter hasn’t gotten here yet,” she says as she begins to look through all the envelops. “Mine came two weeks ago.”

“Yeah, it is weird,” Ben says, but a bit too robotically, like a Siri trained response. He sits up, now looking at her with false eagerness. “But let’s get back to studying. A.P. Calculus leaves no survivors.”

Devi flips to the next envelope, beginning to frown when she sees the orange lettering in the corner.

“Your Princeton letter's right here.”

Ben’s eyes jump from the envelope to Devi multiple times, like he’s watching a ping-pong game.

“Um, no, it’s not.”

“Yeah it is, did you not see it in the stack of—wait, it’s already opened.”

He jumps out of bed. “What? That can’t be right.”

She holds it out, showing him the envelope that’s torn open with a letter shoved back inside.

“This is an outrage, opening someone else’s mail is a felony,” Ben says, nervously jiggling his leg like he’s about to make a run for it. “My mailman will be in so much trouble.”

She places the envelope back on the table and crosses her arms.

“Ben, what’s going on?”

Ben’s face turns towards the ground.

“I got mine I day after yours,” he mutters.

Devi’s lips part in surprise and the room falls quiet.

Her mind went back to remember the day she got her acceptance letter from Princeton. Her friends had thrown her an impromptu party, jumping around her living room to Eleanor’s only none Broadway Spotify playlist. She’d texted Ben right away, his smile bright as she jumped into his arms and held her there, making her feel like she could stay there in that moment forever.

The next day she’d still been riding high from the day before, keeping the letter in her sight even when she went to school to make sure it was real. Devi searched her mind for any hint or clue that Ben had got his letter that morning, but she didn’t remember any change in him that entire day. He had looked happy for her and said nothing about getting any news from Princeton. Thinking about that day is like piecing together a puzzle without the cover on the box to guide you.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Devi asks after a while.

“Because,” Ben sighs, looking back up at her with those big eyes that made her heart clench. “I didn’t want to ruin anything—I was so proud of you.”

Devi places the last puzzle piece in place, unfurling her arms and dropping them at her sides.

“You didn’t get in.”

“No,” Ben shakes his head, with a frown that looks like it’s more for her sake than his own.

Then she hears that voice, the one she’d been able to silence over the past few months, come back to her.

“ _Still like the unexpected Devi_?” McEnroe says, his voice echoing in her head eerily.

“Has your dad called the school?” Devi asks Ben, beginning to pace away from him. “I’m sure he can talk some sense into them, throw some legal jargon, and get you accepted.”

“I don’t want to force or buy my way in. I want to deserve it.”

She can’t disagree with his reasoning. One of the things she loves about Ben is his dedication to succeed that is kindred to hers.

“Why didn’t you want to tell me any of this?” she asks.

“I guess I was afraid to leave the bubble. High school will be over in a few months, and that leaves some unknowns for us,” Ben explains, knitting his hands together in his lap and staring at them. “I knew telling you that we wouldn’t be going to the same place would pop it.”

Devi walks over to the bed and sits next to him. “So, where are you thinking of going?”

“I already decided. Yale.”

“Well, that’s what…two hours away from Princeton?" she asks, her voice rising a pitch higher than before. "That's manageable, right?”

“Devi—.”

“No, it is,” she insists before he can finish, even though she feels her chest rising and falling at a quick rate. “Two hours is how long it takes to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack, and that just flies by.”

“But being two hours away means less time on school work, and we wouldn’t be able to walk over and see each other when we want to. This is everything you’ve been working toward, I don’t want me being hours away to screw with that,” Ben reaches over, grabbing her hand and holding it. “It should be perfect.”

She stares at their hands entwined for a few moments, and Ben watches as the rising and falling of her chest goes back to a steadier rhythm.

“I’m a feminist. I know I don’t need a guy, and school is the most important thing to me, but…” she starts to say, brushing her fingers across his knuckles. “I still don’t want to lose you.”

He holds her hand tighter. “I don’t want to lose you either.”

“How about we table it?” Devi suggests. “Just enjoy the time we have left, and decide by the summer.”

“Ok, you’re right,” he agrees, taking his hand out of her grasp so he can wrap his arm around her shoulders. “We’re together now, that’s what matters.”

They sit there, on the edge of the bed in silence. Devi doesn’t even spare a glance at her notebooks, even though she thought they were so important a few minutes prior.

...

Ben plops down the cardboard box into the trunk of her car. “Please tell me this is the last box of books.”

“It is,” Devi says, pushing all the boxes back so she can close the trunk. Eleanor and Fabiola are currently on both sides of the backseat, trying to stuff piles of clothes in the car.

“Thank god,” Ben says, wiping the sweat from his forehead and panting. “My arms are killing me.”

She jokingly pouts her lips. “Poor baby.”

They talked and talked about what they would do when this day came, but they never said the exact words even when they had the final conversation about it a few weeks ago. It felt wrong to say that they’re breaking up—she doesn’t feel broken from him. If anything, she feels more tethered to him than ever before.

“So,” Ben says, kicking at a rock on the road.

Devi smiles, but it falls flat. “So.”

Fabiola clears her throat, closing the car door and shooting Eleanor a look.

“I think we should double-check Devi’s room to make sure she didn’t forget her toothpaste.”

Eleanor tilts her head. “She can just buy some up there.”

“Dental hygiene is important,” Fabiola states more firmly, walking over to the other side of the car and grabbing Eleanor's arm. “Let’s go.”

Devi and Ben watch as Fabiola begins to tug Eleanor back towards the house. She mutters something to Eleanor that Devi can’t make out as they go through the front door.

Ben stifles a laugh. “They’ve really crafted the art of subtly.”

“I’ve taught them everything I know.”

Just like that, they’re laughing. The sound bursts from them and creates a sort of melody together in the air.

When the laughter dies away, he takes a step towards her, hesitantly moving his arms up as an invitation. Devi takes it, swinging her arms around him, the relief of touching him again since their awkward conversation two weeks prior swimming through her veins. She leans her cheek into his shoulder, hugging him tightly.

“This can’t be it,” Devi says.

She notices the way he shivers when her breath hits his neck.

“It’s not, it’s just the beginning, for both of us,” Ben says, beginning to run his hands up and down her back.

“But the end of us.”

He pulls back slightly, so he can meet her eyes.

“You said you and your therapist thought us taking a break with for our freshman year was the best thing to do.”

“I know,” Devi says, burying her head onto his chest. “But, it’s a sucky thing.”

He takes a strand of her hair, toying with it with a broken smile.

“Definitely sucky.”

“Please don’t tell me you’ll fall in love with those Yale girls who bumps into you and makes your books go flying and convinces you to steal a boat,” Devi says. “Don’t be someone’s Logan to their Rory.”

“Like I would jump off a building with an umbrella,” he scoffs.

“I’m so happy you know that reference.”

“You did make me watch all of them.”

They sway in each other’s arms as they embrace for a while, before breaking apart. They both take a step away from one another after a few more seconds’ pass. Devi thinks maybe this could be easy if they do this one step at a time.

“When you graduate from Princeton, you’re going to do great things,” he says. “Just like Mia in Princess Diaries 2.”

“Stop references pop culture I love,” Devi groans, nudging his chest lightly with her palm. “It’s like if I referenced Andy Samberg right now. Don’t make me, because I finally caught up on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

“Point taken," he winces.

They stare at each other for a while. Devi takes a step back again, and then Ben does too. They repeat this until Devi’s back hits the trunk of her car. It doesn’t hurt, but she winces anyways.

“I love you,” Ben says as simply as one repeats the well-known fact that the earth rotates around the sun.

Maybe he is saying that. One of them is the sun, and one’s the earth, but she’s not sure who is who. Perhaps they’re both different planets, rotating around this thing between them and finding it impossible to escape its orbit.

“I love you too.”

Devi feels her eyes glistening as she scrunches her eyes; the bright sunlight blurring her vision. But she can’t bring herself to push the sunglasses balancing on the top of her head over her eyes. She doesn’t want anything obstructing this view, wanting the image of Ben and her on this street in full color, without the blue tint of her lenses.

Ben’s lips tilt upward, and she mirrors the expression. He walks backward, and she walks towards the driver’s seat of her car and opens it.

Devi looks behind her before getting in the car. She sees Ben walking down the street, his back towards her.

She finally gets into the car, closing the door while taking in shaky breaths.

“ _It’s not supposed to be like this_ ,” Devi thinks to herself as she wipes away a tear.

“ _What was it supposed to be like Devi_?” McEnroe asks.

His voice is less probing than usual, like he’s lost his bite of aggression.

“ _I don’t know_ ,” she admits, watching Ben’s silhouette disappear from the rearview mirror as he rounds a corner. “ _But not this_.”

She waits to say goodbye to her mother, Fabiola, and Eleanor before turning on the engine. It brings the car to life, but she feels something inside slip away as she begins to drive past her house.

...

Freshman year is everything she imagined while also being nothing like she pictured. Sure, it’s full of classes and parties you shouldn’t have gone to because you now need to cram a few hours before the test, and there are all those cheesy orientation events that they make you go to to check off a box for the obligatory College 101 course that all freshman had to take.

But, it’s also intense, filled with panics of self-doubt while other days are exhilarating when a professor smiles at you when you answer a question or gives you advice even when it’s unprompted. It's like they see something in you that they’d be remiss if they didn’t help grow.

Sometimes, she feels more at peace than she ever has. Her classes are fulfilling her in the ways she craved. Her friends on campus grow steadily, continuing to keep her relationship with Fabiola and Eleanor as strong as ever through many sessions of FaceTime and Skype.

Yet, sometimes, she feels so alone. Even when her roommate is on the other side of the room, typing fervently on her computer, she feels this great weight of absence. Like there’s something a few feet away that she can’t quite get her grip on. Every time she looks up to face it, she can’t see it.

There’s a knock on her door. She waits for the door to open and to hear the shrill of her roommate’s friends from her sorority that she’s doing crazy things to get in for like a jog in evening wear and having to write the notes for their class in code.

But no squealing comes, so Devi looks up from her computer, towards the other room, and realizing that her roommate must have left the room a few minutes ago for dinner.

Devi closes her laptop, walking to the door. When she opens it, her mouth falls open.

There he is, standing in front of her for the first time in months, wearing a Yale sweatshirt and his eyes just as immensely blue as she remembered them.

“Ben?”

“Hey,” Ben says breathlessly, sounding like he’s been running.

Devi looks at his hands, seeing them clutching a tin tray of baked goods that smell heavenly. The scent wafts into her room and replaces the odor of orange soda that her roommate spilled on their carpet the other day.

He holds out the tray to her. “I brought brownies. You still like brownies, right?”

“My love for brownies hasn’t changed over the past five months.”

“Glad to know I didn’t wreck my dorm's kitchen for nothing.”

She’s still holding the door open. Two guys pass behind him in the hallway, but they remain unmoved.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, I should’ve called or texted,” he says, looking down with a wince. “I can just go.”

As he begins to turn around, Devi learns that they instinct to touch him is still there.

“Stay,” Devi says as she stops him with a hand on top of his holding the brownies. She retracts it quickly, clearing her throat. “You just surprised me is all.”

Devi holds the door open further, letting him into her room. He walks in slowly, his head panning around to take in the entire space.

“This is a great room,” he says, probably just to have something to fill the silence.

Ben’s fidgety, the tin of brownies shaking in his hands. 

“What’s wrong?”

Ben seems startled by this, flinching at the question.

“Nothing,” he says, placing the brownies down on her bed. “College is great. Dropped out of the law program, got in a fight with my dad, but besides that everything’s—.”

“Whoa, hold up,” she interrupts him, putting her hands up to stop him. “You dropped out of the law program?” He says nothing, but nods. Devi crosses her arms, studying him for some sort of clue. “I don’t understand, that’s all you ever wanted.”

“That’s what I thought. But when I was in my classes, I realized I didn’t want it at all. My dad did. Being a lawyer sucks. Most fields of law that would make you be able to sleep at night barely pay anything, and the ones that do pay well are filled with elitist crap,” Ben says as he nervously fiddles with the strings on his sweatshirt. “Also, I hate law jargon. I love words, but those words are senseless. You should help a client by not speaking an alien language to them.”

Devi nods at all of this, feeling dazed by the rush of words that just poured out of him.

“So, what do you want to do?”

“I took a political science class, and I really liked it,” he says, glowing as he speaks. Devi gets a flashback of him in front of their class, passionately presenting his point with precise articulation while his words still sound full of authentic emotion. “I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but the thought of being a part of something to help people in that way makes me happy.”

“That’s great, Ben,” she smiles, sitting down on her bed due to her legs suddenly feeling a little like jelly.

“What about you?” Ben sits beside her, his eyes gleaming at her knowingly. “Are you the top medical student in your class already?”

“I’m working my way up there,” Devi says, rolling her eyes at his smirk. “Being at in Ivy League is like being surrounded by copies of yourself. The competition is harder but exciting. I love it.”

He grins at her proudly. “I knew you’d be amazing here.”

Devi nudges his shoulder with his. “Thanks.”

They don’t say anything for a while. Devi picks at the lint on her sleeve just to have something to do.

McEnroe makes a fake snoring sound, wanting to move this interaction along.

“So, you seeing anybody?” Ben asks eventually, his hands twitching on the rim of the brownie tin at his side.

“I’ve been on a few dates here and there. Nothing serious, though,” Devi answers, steeling herself to meet his eyes. “What about you?”

“Same.”

Although the word is singular, it sounds like he crammed so much into that word.

“What are you doing here?” she asks for the second time that night, but this time, the question hangs heavier in the room.

“I—I don’t know,” he stutters, squirming on the bed. “I was sitting in my dorm room, pouring over my history textbook. I came across the section about the revolutionary war. It made me think about that joke in class you made when we were sophomores about the liberty bell, and I wanted to remind you about it, but you weren’t there. I could’ve texted or called, but I realized that it wasn’t enough.” Ben meets her gaze, his Adam’s apple moving. "I needed to see you in person.”

“To tell me about an old inside joke we had?”

“No, to tell you that I miss you, and...” his words drift off aimlessly, but Devi needs to hear what they are.

“And?”

“And that I see the merit in taking a break. If you want to keep doing that, I’ll respect that,” Ben assures, letting out a shaky breath. Devi observes him as he rubs his hands anxiously on his thighs, feeling the urge to reach out and hold his hands. “But I feel like I’ve been going around campus with a limb missing. I can still walk, but that limb is a big part of me. I want it back.”

That weight of absence she felt, she knew it had been about Ben—even if she never put a name to it. But she imagined how much more significant of weight it would be if he came back into her life, only to have to leave it again.

“How would we make it work?” Devi swallows, feeling a lump forming in her throat. “Long-distance doesn’t usually work.”

“Usually, but we’ve always made a great team, right? If anyone can do the impossible, it’s us.” His eyes beam with hopefulness, the kind that’s fragile but can become much stronger if you encourage it. “So, what do you think?”

Devi can’t think. With him here, sitting next to her, she just feels. Devi feels everything they’ve been through, and everything she wants to go through with him. She feels the love she has for the boy who carried an abacus in the first grade. She feels love for the guy she would snipe comments back and forth with at her locker and in class, and the one she met that night on the floor at Model U.N. She loves the guy who she started to fall in love with at the beach in a car. She also loves the one who is sitting next to her right now.

She realizes that her love for all those guys isn’t equal. She loves the guy in front of her the most, because he's all of those complicated people combined, and he drove two hours to talk to her about missing limbs.

“I think you better give me one of those brownies and stay over, so I don’t eat the whole thing.”

He breaks out into a wide grin, reaching over to the brownies and handing her the entire tin. Devi picks up a corner piece, chewing it and groaning in delight at the taste. When she opens her eyes, she seems that Ben’s smile hasn’t even wavered an inch.

Devi surges forward and kisses him. As she does, that aching absence goes away—like she just regained a limb.

As she reacquaints herself with her favorite spot on his neck, she hears Ben mumble, “I love you so much, David.”

She pulls away and cups his cheeks.

“You talk too much,” Devi says before her mouth finds its way back to his.

Devi thinks she hears him mumble, “so do you,” but his retort gets lost as Ben falls back onto her dorm bed, his arms encircling her.

As she leans down, kissing his lips as softly as possible, she doesn’t think Ben cares much about having the last word this time.

…

She’s been on the phone for the last hour. Devi’s ear is starting to hurt from pressing her screen to it. She loves her mother, but she was relentless when she didn’t think something was getting through to Devi. Devi lays on the couch, closing her eyes and listening to her mother continue to talk.

“I let you have your fling, but now you are graduating from college, and it’s time to get serious.”

“I am serious.”

“When I FaceTime’d you yesterday, you were putting fruit loops in a frying pan,” her mother responds in a way that makes Devi visualize the disapproving glare that must be on her face right now.

“I went grocery shopping right after that.”

“Alright, you want to have a childish appetite? Fine. Let’s get back to the matter at hand,” her mother sighs, and she hears the chopping sound of what’s probably cutting vegetables on a cutting board on the other end. “You should start meeting suitors.”

“Why?” Devi exclaims in disbelief. “Kamala didn’t start until she was in her late twenties.”

“Yes, but the sooner you start looking at your options, the better, I know how picky you are. I don’t want to wait to have grandchildren until you’re in your forties.”

Devi inhales and exhales deeply, using the relaxation strategy that Dr. Ryan taught her so she wouldn’t let her fuse go off. She resisted the temptation to break anything around her that they couldn’t afford to replace with her in medschool and him taking a low-paying internship at the city hall. Not to mention that She and Ben spent forever decorating their new apartment with the best things they could find in every superstore's clearance in a fifteen-mile radius.

“Mom, I respect the tradition, I do. I’m not against it. I might have done it if I weren’t already with someone.”

There’s a beat of silence. Devi sits up on the couch, waiting for her mom to process what she was saying.

“For now,” her mother says hesitantly.

“And for the foreseeable future.”

“Honey, I love Benjamin, but high school and college boyfriends rarely work in the long term. You need to share more similarities to stick it out.”

“I’ll admit we’re not similar on paper, but we’re similar,” Devi states. “We both value our education, we both want similar things in life, and we both love each other. Those are the only similarities you need.”

“Devi, I know you think you love each other, but schoolgirl crushes don't last.”

“This is not a schoolgirl crush, mom,” she cuts in. Devi takes in a few more deep breaths. Her relationship with her mom has been better than it’s ever been, and that’s because of honesty. She needs to be honest now. “Every day is better with him in it, good and bad days.”

Her mom seems to let this sink in, the noise of her cooking gone, making her mother’s focus intent on her.

“If you want me to be happy, then you’ll accept this.”

Her mother sighs. “Alright.”

“Alright as in you accept it?”

“Alright as in you’re an adult now and I can tell you what to do, I especially don’t want you to do something that would make you unhappy,” her mom says, and Devi is impressed at how breezy she manages to make the statement sound.

“Thanks mom,” she says, and means it. While she doesn’t need her mother’s approval, she’s delighted she has it. This is a start.

Devi holds onto the pillow with a bunch of hearts all over it that Eleanor got as moving in gift. They talk for a little while longer, about some of her mother’s patients or how Devi is managing the start of her internal medicine training before saying goodbye.

“Hey,” Ben says when he walks through the door.

“Hi,” Devi says, smiling as Ben presses a kiss to her forehead from behind the couch.

“I brought Chinese,” he said, waving the bags of their favorite takeout place in the air. “Hungry?”

She snags one of the bags. “Always.”

He sits down and starts taking out all the takeout containers on the table in front of the couch.

“Want to watch a movie while we eat?” he asks, shoveling some Chow Mein into his mouth.

“Sure,” Devi says, picking up the box of fried rice. “But anything but _Popstar_ , I beg of you.”

“Fine, let’s watch something we both like. How about _The Man from Uncle_?”

“Two hot guys and a badass girl with retro clothes? Hell yes,” she cheers.

He gets up, plugging in his laptop to the television and queuing up the movie. Devi watches him, thinking back to her conversation with her mother about loving him in good days and bad days. This is a good day, but she wouldn't trade them for the bad days they've had, because all of that time is what got them here.

When he sits back down, the opening scene playing, he notices her staring at him.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Ben asks, a curious smile forming on his face. “Is John McEnroe talking to you again? If so, tell him I say hello.”

“No, he’s not,” Devi says, shaking her head and unable to hold back her grin. “I was just thinking about how I was right about something I said to my mom on the phone—that’s all.”

“You won an argument with your mom?” he gawks. “Wow, you must’ve had a really good case.”

“Yeah, I did,” Devi says while stretching out her legs so they go on top of his lap. She smiles when Ben starts to rub her feet instinctually. “I do.”


End file.
